Velocity
by Nirav
Summary: climb the boxcar to the engine through the smoke in to the sky/your rails have always outrun mine, so i/pick them up and smash them down in a moment close to now


**Author's Note:** So, this came out of nowhere on my vacation-that-was-not-a-vacation last week. A while ago, to try to conquer writer's block, I did one of those iTunes-shuffle-drabble things, _Somewhere In Your Charm_, and one of the songs that came up was Neko Case's spectacular _This Tornado Loves You_. This is an expansion of that one drabble.

* * *

Everyone considered them enemies. Rivals, nemeses, sworn against one another for no other reason than the fact that they existed on polarized ends of the social spectrum. Years and years of snide remarks and verbal battles and bullying, insults and sneers and sniping at one another built an impenetrable wall between them that everyone fully expected to only grow more as time went by.

Then, one day, they were wrong.

* * *

First it was slow.

It wasn't deliberate, on either of their parts. Rachel didn't walk away from her irrevocably damaged relationship with Jessie intending to fall into the arms of a former rival, just as Quinn's intention was never to intertwine her life so extensively with that of a loudmouthed diva with a penchant for brutal honesty. Rather, it was more that Rachel wandered out of the train wreck of displaced trust and broken hearts that had become her life after Jessie and Shelby, and happened to stumble across Quinn's path at all the right moments. And Quinn, still reeling from the unexpected loss she'd felt from handing her daughter over for adoption, held herself together by redirecting her attentions on anything productive enough to keep her from thinking of the child she'd let go.

First it was slow. Rachel, contrary to typical Rachel Berry fashion, buried her pain and emotions at having a boyfriend who was a fraud and a painfully awkward relationship with her birth mother that was straining her family at the seams, and forced herself into smiles and laughter among those who had finally started to count her as a friend. The glee club, bonded together in the new school year over a renewed determination to displace the reigning national champions, was there to offer support and hugs and chocolate and violence towards Jessie when it came to light that he and Rachel were broken up and he was returning to his old school. Rachel, though, thanked them for their offers and politely declined, citing the need to be a bigger person while placating their bloodlust with a determination to wipe the floor with his glee club the next time they competed. She smiled and danced and sang, surrounded by her friends, and waited to cry until she was alone in the rehearsal room, tears dripping silently onto the piano keys in front of her. Day by day, she held her chin up until she was blessedly alone, and only then let herself cry.

It was one of those days that it started. Quinn doubled back to the school after practice, having left her choreography notes in the rehearsal room, and walked in on a crying Rachel. And while her first instinct was still to take advantage of the gap in the armor in front of her, she instead quashed the reaction and sat down next to Rachel for an awkwardly long silence, an equally awkward hand coming to rest on Rachel's shoulder.

Every afternoon that week, Quinn found a reason to return to the rehearsal room, and every afternoon she sat on the piano bench next to a silently crying Rachel Berry and waited. The next week was identical, and the two after that followed suit until one day Rachel started talking. Hesitant, halting words pushed through lips that normally moved at the speed of light became full sentences, and then paragraphs, explaining in detail how Jessie had destroyed her ability to trust, how she had met her birth mother and wanted a relationship with her, how that desire was ripping her family apart, how Dad now slept on the couch in the den while Daddy tossed and turned all night in their bed.

Quinn listened, day by day, silent and sympathetic, and one day her hand moved from resting on Rachel's shoulder to sliding their fingers together. A week after she started speaking to Quinn, Rachel heard gossip from Santana that the tires on Jessie's car had been slashed, his house egged, and the Vocal Adrenaline auditorium mysteriously in sudden need of extensive asbestos repairs.

Then it was fast. One Thursday, Rachel was waiting for Quinn on the piano bench with dry eyes and a determined look upon her face. Quinn, silent as usual, stood questioningly beside the piano, unsure of how to handle a Rachel who was neither singing, nor crying, nor talking nigh-incoherently. Quinn stared and Rachel blushed, and then Rachel stood delicately from the piano bench, cleared her throat, and pulled Quinn in by the wrist to kiss her.

Then it was fast. From the first kiss they tumbled headlong into a romance that took everyone by storm. As quiet as their relationship was kept from the general population, the intensity and volatility of it was painfully clear to those who were privy to its existence. The other members of the glee club watched with fascination and fear as two former rivals became enamored with one another, communicating with silent glances and touching _always_ and becoming inhumanly protective of one another. Slushies were no longer thrown at Rachel in the hallway—how Quinn, without her Cheerios uniform, managed such a feat was a mystery to everyone, but the fact that glee members no longer needed to carry spare clothes meant too much to them for questions—and Rachel was prone to railing away at anyone who thought it a good idea to make even the slightest possibility of a negative comment towards Quinn and her pregnancy.

* * *

The rest of the student body knew nothing about why Quinn Fabray was suddenly so protective of Rachel Berry, but there wasn't a single person who had the nerve to question it. The bullies ceased their unsavory activities after one particular reaming delivered to a linebacker from a blonde girl a third his size, which left him all but crying; the power that Quinn had once commanded returned to her piecemeal, and was directed solely towards the protection of Rachel Berry. By necessity, the rest of the glee club was protected as well, and after two months the entirety of the formerly-slushied school population was included in the protected sect. Teachers breathed a sigh of relief. Students relished in the ability to walk through the halls freely. An uneasy peace spread through the school, and it was all thanks to Rachel Berry.

* * *

Finn and Puck, their friendship mended by watching the friend they both had in Rachel slip away as she careened into loving the girl who had broken both of their hearts, watched from the sidelines apprehensively. Puck predicted two weeks before Rachel's heart was broken as well. Finn predicted three.

Seven months later, they were both wrong.

First it was slow.

Quinn's renewed determination to make it out of Lima manifested in obsessive studying, the lack of her place among the Cheerios worrying her to no end when it came to college applications. Too many times, in Rachel's words, Quinn flaked on a date night to stay in and study, leaving Rachel alone and bored and frustrated. And Rachel, as focused as always on Broadway and Julliard and being discovered, spent more time when she was with Quinn chattering about her plans for future success than she did listening to anything Quinn had to say.

First it was slow. Dates were postponed, then rescheduled, then cancelled altogether. Conversations turned to steely silence as Quinn grew tired of listening to Rachel's narcissistic rambling, and Rachel sang out her frustrations at Quinn no longer having time for her. Quinn's halfhearted efforts to more effectively balance studying and time for her girlfriend backfired when she spent most of her time with Rachel worrying about college applications, and Rachel's superficial attempts to guide conversations towards Quinn were shallow at best and patronizing at worst.

Then it was fast. Quinn watched, before a glee rehearsal, as Rachel flirted with Finn, a hand on his forearm and leaning towards him as she giggled and pushed her hair back. Rachel glared darkly as Quinn, once they were all taking their seats for practice, bypassed her normal chair next to Rachel and instead settled between Brittany and Matt. Quinn confronted Rachel furiously about being fickle and flirtatious. Rachel scoffed indignantly and stormed up to her room and drowned herself in the soundtrack from _Jesus Christ, Superstar_, and when Quinn burst into the room angrily, accusations were thrown from both sides, curses bellowed and faults picked apart until Rachel crossed the line they had never yet toed, announcing that she was done being in a relationship with a girl who was dumb enough to get pregnant at sixteen and cruel enough to lie about the paternity.

Then it was fast. As soon as the words were out, hanging heavily in the air, Rachel was apologetic and Quinn was torn between fury and hurt, and Rachel's daddy was knocking loudly on the door and demanding that the two of them come downstairs to sort this out with adult supervision. Then Quinn opted for fury over pain and pinned Rachel to the wall with a cold glare so full of rage that the brunette almost whimpered as Quinn slammed out of the room, and then it was over.

* * *

By the next week, it was like time had jumped back eighteen months. Quinn dropped out of glee and bulldogged her way back into her position atop the cheerleading pyramid. The glee club was no longer safe from the slushy attacks and dumpster tosses that Quinn's protection of Rachel had afforded them. Finn and the other football players were once again stuck atop the fence, facing pressure from the reinstated high school hierarchy to get in line or get slushied. Only Santana and Brittany, by virtue of being Quinn's best friends since the first grade, were spared.

In the matter of a weekend, the icy and ruthless head Cheerio who had once ruled the school with an iron fist reemerged, in all of her ponytailed and cartwheeling glory, and laughed cruelly when the hockey neanderthal Karofsky—who was surprisingly quick to realize the things were back where they once had been—hurled a cherry slushy into the unsuspecting face of a tired looking Rachel Berry.

The glee club members had taken to wearing raincoats in the hallways. Puck and Finn and Matt and Mike spent an inordinate amount of time in detention for getting into fights with whoever thought it was a good idea to try slushying them. Brittany and a previously-unseen softer Santana did what they could to help their fellow glee clubbers avoid the slushy attacks, but were unwilling to jeopardize a lifelong friendship with an already-heartbroken Quinn. After all, there was little doubt that things would get triply worse for everyone if Quinn, after losing the girl she loved, also lost her oldest and closest friends.

Rachel finally gave in to the pleas of her fellow glee members and tried to approach Quinn. She cornered the blonde in the Cheerios locker room after cheerleading practice, tipped off to her being alone by way of a text from Brittany.

"Quinn, please," she said for what felt like the hundredth time. "Can't we talk about this civilly? I know we're not okay, but everyone else is getting hurt by it and you're the only one who can put a stop to all of this. This entire school will do whatever you say."

Quinn ignored her, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder and continuing to pack her things into her gym bag.

"Please," Rachel repeated. She stepped forward, daring to reach out and lay her hand on Quinn's shoulder, hesitant and awkward and reminiscent of so many afternoons spent silently on a piano bench.

Quinn practically growled, spinning around and ripping Rachel's hand from her shoulder. She advanced on the smaller girl with all the determination and predatory grace of a jaguar, stalking forward until Rachel's back slammed against the opposite row of lockers.

"Quinn," Rachel whispered fearfully. Quinn slammed her hands against the lockers on either side of Rachel's head, smirking when the echoing crash made Rachel jump and shut her eyes.

"You did this," Quinn whispered, her breath hot across Rachel's face. "Remember that."

Rachel stared up at her, silent and wide-eyed, and wondered how things had devolved so rapidly. The signs she'd ignored for so long, slow-building indicators of incompatibility and baggage and the unlikelihood of two headstrong control-obsessed Type-A personalities functioning together healthily, were all there in hindsight, but never had she thought it would end so violently.

Quinn stared blankly down at Rachel, standing only inches away, face carefully schooled into a cold mask of indifference as she battled competing desires to punch Rachel in the mouth or kiss her. The seconds ticked by at an unbearably slow pace until her self-control won out, and she slowly pulled away, spinning on one heel and crossing the room to retrieve her bag. She pushed away the desperate sensation that things were happening too quickly for her to control and, feeling Rachel's wide eyes on her the whole time, she deliberately added an extra sway to her step as she walked away with chin up and shoulders back and her eyes never looking back.

Rachel remained where she was, pressed back against the lockers, long after Quinn had sauntered out of the room.


End file.
